The Intelligent Universe

260 Pages·1984·12.644 MB·English

by  Fred Hoyle

ISBN 0-03-07DDfl3-3 FPT
This major work by the eminent theoretical physicist
and distinguished author challenges our traditional
beliefs about the origins and nature of the Universe
and the evolution of life on Earth. In a lucid and
engaging style, Fred Hoyle builds an authoritative
case against the most sacred cows of the scientific
establishment.
The author argues persuasively that we owe our
existence to another intelligence which, as part of a
deliberate plan, created a structure for life that is far
too complex to have risen by random processes.
Among the award-winning scientist’s astounding
revelations:
• In pre-Copemican days, the Earth was erroneously
thought to be the geometrical and physical center
of the Universe. Nowadays, in seemingly
respectable scientific circles, the Earth is taken to
be the biological center of the Universe - an almost
incredible repetition of the initial error. Yet
nothing is clearer than the fact that all life
processes are cosmic in their scope.
• The Darwinian theory of evolution is shown to be
plainly wrong. Life has evolved because biological
components of cosmic origin have been
progressively assembled here on Earth. These
components have arrived from outside, bome in
from the cosmos on comets.
• Bacteria can survive in the extreme conditions of
outer space. In contrast to what we are told by
NASA, it looks as if the Viking missions in 1976
proved that life does exist on Mars, and there is
now conclusive evidence that life exists
throughout the solar system.
• The key to understanding evolution is the virus.
The viruses responsible for evolution and the
viruses responsible for diseases are very similar.
They are different sides of the same coin.
• Despite frequent reports of UFOs, the facts show
that space travel beyond our own solar system will
always be out of reach. The only space travellers are
cosmic microorganisms - the components of the
creation and evolution of life.
• There are no differences between the atoms in our
bodies and those in inanimate matter - the atomic
building blocks of both are the same. It is the
arrangement of the atoms that is unique to life.
Beautifully illustrated throughout with photographs,
drawings and diagrams to support the flow of
argument, The Intelligent Universe presents in clear
terms to the general reader an all-embracing view of
the cosmos that succeeds in fusing the empiricism of
the rationalist with the moral instincts of the
philosopher. It is a view that fashions a new concept of
the Universe, a vision of an infinity fuelled with
information and fired by intelligence.
0384
THE
INTELLIGENT
UNIVERSE

THE
INTELLIGENT
UNIVERSE
—
Holt, Rinehart and Winston
New York
For Geoffrey
The Intelligent Universe was conceived, edited, and designed by
Dorling Kindersley Limited, 9 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8PS.
Copyright © 1983 by Dorling Kindersley Limited
Text copyright © 1983 by Fred Hoyle
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this
book or portions thereof in any form.
First published in the United States in 1984 by
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 383 Madison Avenue,
New York, New York 10017.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Holt, Rinehart
and Winston of Canada, Limited.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83-81955
ISBN: 0-03-070083-3
First American Edition
Editor David Bumie
Art Editor Peter Luff
Managing Editor Alan Buckingham
Art Director Stuart Jackman
Editorial Director Christopher Davis
Printed and bound in Italy by Amoldo Mondadori, Verona
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
ISBN 0-03-D7D0fi3-3
CONTENTS
FOREW ORD 6
1 -CHANCE AND THE UNIVERSE 11
2 - THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DARWIN 25
3 • LIFE DID NOT ORIGINATE ON EARTH 51
4* THE INTERSTELLAR CONNECTION 83
5 • EVOLUTION BY COSMIC CONTROL 109
6 • W HY AREN’T THE OTHERS HERE? 139
7 -AFTER THE BIG BANG 163
8 • THE INFORMATION-RICH UNIVERSE 189
9 • W HAT IS INTELLIGENCE UP TO? 217
10 •THE INTELLIGENT UNIVERSE 241
INDEX 252
FOREWORD
Everybody must wonder from time to time if there is any real
purpose in life. Of course we all have immediate aims, to
succeed in our careers, to bring up our children, and still in
many parts of the world simply to earn enough to eat. But
what of a long-range purpose? For what reason do we live our
lives at all?
Biology, as it is presently taught, answers that the purpose is
to produce the next generation. But many of us are impelled
to persist in wondering if that can be all. If the purpose of each
generation is merely to produce the next, does the overall end
result achieved sometime in the distant future have any
purpose? No, biology answers once more. There is nothing
except continuity, no purpose except continued existence,
now or in the future.
If that is so, what is the use of that unique feature of our
species, the moral code present in all human societies? Its use
lies in promoting our continued existence, the biologist
replies. Because humans achieve more by working together in
groups, a concern for the welfare of others besides ourselves
promotes community survival.
Even if we grant for a moment that this proposition is true,
so what? There are many things that would assist our survival
which we do not possess. Throughout the history of man it
would often have been an advantage in moments of great
danger to be able to run like a hare or to soar away from the
danger up into the sky like a bird. But we can do neither.
These examples show that the logic is back-to-front. Just as
desire does not automatically generate that which is desired,
so advantage does not automatically generate that which
would be an advantage, either in biology7 or elsewhere.
Man’s moral sense is a fragile affair. We have to bolster it
with a tangle of laws because in itself virtuous behaviour is not
predominantly advantageous to survival. In many cases in our
daily lives cheating is more profitable than truthfulness, while
brutality and aggression are all too often profitable to the
survival of nations. Instead it would be easy to build a
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considerable argument to show that the moral sense in man
persists despite all the temptations which constantly work
against it.
I came across the difficulties with which the moral sense in
man has to contend quite early in life. My father was a
machine-gunner in the First World War, surviving
miraculously in the trenches of northern France and Flanders
over three long years. He was one of the few who came
through the immense Ludendorff attack of 21 March 1918.
His machine-gun post was overrun, not by the usual few
hundred yards but by miles, so that he found himself far
within the enemy line. My father told me afterwards that this
was his worst moment of the war, because of his ever-present
expectation of encountering a lone German, with the prospect
that, without the possibility of verbal communication
between them, the two would be committed to fight it out to
the end in armed combat.
It was some years later that I saw the solution to my father’s
problem. If you were alone in no-man’s land, faced by a
German with whom you could not talk intelligibly, the best
thing to do—unless you had an unhealthy taste for combat to
the death—would be to remove your helmet. It the German
then had the wit to do the same you would both perceive the
fact that, hidden deliberately by the distinctive helmets, you
were both members of the same species, almost as similar as
two peas in a pod.
Ever since this early perception I have believed that wars are
made possible, not by guns and bombs, not by ships and
aircraft, but by uniforms, caps and helmets. Should the day
ever come when it is agreed among the nations of the world
that all armies shall wear the same uniforms and helmets then
I will know for sure that at long last war has been banished
from the Earth. So far from there being any prospect ot this
happening, the first thing that every emerging nation does
with its army, even ahead of acquiring physical weapons, is to
clothe its soldiers in distinctive uniforms, thereby artificially
creating a new “subspecies” of man, sworn to destroy other
artificially created “subspecies”. Such then are the odds
against which the moral sense in us all has to contend.
The modem point of view that survival is all has its roots in
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Darwin’s theory of biological evolution through natural seleo
tion. Harsh as it may seem, this is an open charter for any
form of opportunistic behaviour. Whenever it can be shown
with reasonable plausibility that even cheating and murder
would aid the survival either of ourselves personally or the
community in which we happen to live, then orthodox logic
enjoins us to adopt these practices, just because there is no
morality except survival.
If I were called on to defend orthodox science against this
unpleasant accusation, I would argue that it is not so much a
case of biology influencing the state of society as it is of the
state of society controlling the thinking of biologists. I could
begin by demonstrating that the ideas of Darwin’s theory were
already in place by 1830, almost a third of a century before the
publication in 1859 of Darwin’s book The Origin of Species.
But while the ideas were there already, the state of society was
not yet ripe. An important change was needed before the
ideas were called forth.
It is easy to see what this change was. By the 1860s, the
industrial scene had burgeoned. Companies were competing
fiercely in the production of similar products, railways were
competing for traffic, nations were competing for Lebensraum.
While the latter was not particularly new, the cut-and-thrust
of commerce with its threat of ruin on a grand scale certainly
was. Improvement of products was the key to survival. From
practical experience in commerce it was then a short step to
the concept of an improvement of species through natural
selection—the Darwinian theory.
Except for a very few scientists, everybody overlooked a
crucial step in the analogy between commercial and natural
selection. Commercial selection works only because at the
back of it there are human intellects constantly striving to
improve the range and quality of their products. Commercial
selection is therefore very far from the purposeless affair
natural selection is taken to be in biology.
In reality, natural selection acts like a sieve. It can distin­
guish between species presented to it, but it cannot decide
what species shall be sieved in the first place. The control over
what is presented to the sieve has to enter terrestrial biology
from outside itself—not just from outside the living world,
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